Swarms and Queen Cells Confuse New Beekeepers

“4 days ago her last brood hatched, and I added one deep frame of brood both capped and new eggs. Today they balled up on her and I noticed they have a queen cell. I have another hive that is doing pretty good here in Texas in the dearth. Should I merge the both hives so they can be a stronger colony for winter or should I try to see if the new queen will get mated in a few weeks? (I know drone’s are low right now) Thank you for your time! submitted by /u/Puzzleheaded_Love703 [link] &”

“We switched our honey bees from a horizontal hive to a langstroth hive. When doing so not all of the bees wanted to move to the new hive that had their existing queen. To solve this we put a swarm box with drawn out comb frames inside the horizontal hive and the remaining bees went into that swarm box. Since then I’ve moved them into their own langstroth hive but are currently queen-less. I gave those bees a frame of eggs from another hive on 9/12 hoping that they make a new queen soon. If so, w”

“Any idea what I’m looking at? it looks like a queen bee with 4-5 smaller bees attached. I googled it and found something called balling where they’re trying to suffocate the queen? should I do anything? thanks in advance! submitted by /u/tashacat28 [link] [comments]”

“Hello fellow beekeepers I've got a bit of a problem I thought one of my hives was queenles so I ordered a new one then today when she arrived I checked the hive and there were eggs everywhere meaning I had misread the situation and there was in fact a queen as you can imagine I now have a bit of a problem I don't want to have my new queen go to waste but I don't have any queenles hives is there any way to save her? submitted by /u/kaiamomo [link] [comments]”

“First year beekeeper! I went to check on my hives today and I found a lot of what I think might be queen cells. I couldn’t find my queen, but I wasn’t able to do a full inspection. I thought I saw some evidence of new laying, so I wasn’t worried about the queen until I saw the cells. My bees were also super aggressive today. Are they preparing to swarm? Or are they requeening or just practicing? Any advice would be great! Located in CT (Sorry about the shaky video) submitted by /u/Ni”

“Hello. I am a first year bee keeper located in Northwest Vermont. I have two hives, one with Italian honey bees and the other with Saskatraz Bees. I just did a hive inspection and found what I believe to be 12 swarm cells in my Italian hive, 10 are capped and 2 are not (I’m too inexperienced to know if they haven’t been filled or if they emerged). I am extremely confused and looking for guidance. This feels like something that needs immediate attention as I’m going out of town tomorrow and Sunda”

“I have a very small hive that has a queen that was from an emergency cell. She is not a good layer, very spotty and I did not see any fresh eggs when I checked today. I have another small hive with a good queen that I want to merge them with but I am not quite sure about one thing. Can I take away the queen and immediately put that hive on top of the other one so they merge? Or will that cause a war? Or should I take the bad queen away and wait a day or two before merging? submitted by &#3”

“Newer beekeeper in Texas. I have one strong hive with 2 deeps + 2 honey supers and a queen from last year. For several weeks they've repeatedly made charged queen cells . I've been removing them after confirming the queen was alive and laying, but they rebuild them every week. Aug 12: Found the queen, fresh eggs and young larvae. Aug 18: Hive still packed with bees and lots of capped brood/honey, but I couldn't find the queen, fresh eggs, or very young larvae. I also found a LOT of q”

“1st year beekeepers My son and I where going through one of our two hives. Its always been more on the aggressive side. We found about 9-10 queen cells with larva in our second box. There looks like theres plenty of space for the current queen to keep laying and they are stocking Nectar it looks like here in Wy and I dont know where they are getting it lol. We removed all of the formed/forming queen cells we could find. They still have frames to fill out in the second deep and the medium on top”

“I'm in South West Connecticut. I inspected hives 27 days ago on 7/20 before leaving on vacation. There were fresh eggs (although I had trouble finding them) and all stages of brood. Today's inspection I found plenty of capped brood and SOME late stage larvae. Found what look convincingly like emergency queen cells on a few frames. Awkwardly projecting from center to lower center of frames. All capped. I appear to be queenless. My Queens are unmarked and it's possible I rolled her or”

“I checked my hive 7 days ago but wasn’t able to go to the brood box because a storm came in. Today I was able to do a full inspection and found a capped swarm cell (I think). There aren’t any others. Maybe a couple of queen cups but they have nothing in them. There are maybe 2 more cups. But that’s it. I couldn’t find the queen but I found SOME evidence she was there 3 days ago (eggs but not as many as I usually see). The bottom box is full. I have brood, excluder, 2 deep supers. There are a lot”

“Maybe someone could help us understand. Two weeks ago during an inspection we found no eggs, multiple capped queen cells and one opened queen cell. We found the old queen and a newly hatched queen on the same frame. We figured this was a superscedure so we removed the remainder of the capped queen cells and left the hive with both queens. Now, it's two weeks later and we still don't see any eggs. We examined each frame and were unable to locate the old queen and new queen. We did find mu”

“Hi yall, Im a beekeeper and have one hive in western Massachusetts. I’m trying to figure out whether I should be concerned about swarm preparation and what I should do next. The colony started as two packages in the spring. One package lost its queen after a raccoon damaged the hive, so I combined it with the queen-right package. The colony has since absolutely exploded in population. Some context from the past few weeks: Double-medium brood chamber. Colony is extremely strong. Lots of capped br”

“I recently went into a hive (2 deep hive) to collect bees for a mite check, when I noticed lots of queen cells being formed. If I remember correctly, I spotted about 6 cells in different development stages. My first initial thought was "they're going to swarm and I need another hive". Its early August and by the time the new queen gets established, I don't believe they will have enough wild resources to start winter preparations. But that's if they do plan to swarm. I did n”

“I’ve got one hive that just refuses to stop swarming and I’m at a loss for what to do. On June 10 I opened up my big healthy hive and saw queen cells all over the place. I left two cells intact, and removed the queen + 4 frames to make a split. June 27 the OG colony sends out a massive swarm which I recapture and make a split with. The next day, they send out another swarm I am unable to recapture. I give the colony a few weeks and upon inspection find no brood and no queen July 11, so I add a m”

“My hive swarmed about 2 weeks ago and left a ton of queen cells. I let them do their thing and I guess multiple emerged at the same time and 1 queen stayed with 1/2 of the population and the rest went with the other queens to a high tree in my yard. Used two boxes and used swarm lure and both boxes have attracted the separate swarms. There is still a smaller clump on the tree branch but most are going towards the NUC boxes. I feel like these two swarms are too small to survive the winter, is the”

“Europe. Caught a swarm and was only able to provide those frames and i cant tell what kind of eggs these are. Only saw a couple capped drones and im worried .Thanks submitted by /u/Chance-Case6427 [link] [comments]”

“Hi All, It's my second year beekeeping and I have a hive that lost the queen last month. The bees did make a supersedure cell and the new queen is mated and laying now! The hive was set up with 2 deep boxes, a queen excluder on top of those, and 2 medium boxes above that for honey. The issue is I found larva today in the medium boxes above the queen excluder. My theory is the queen went on mating flights and came back to the hive using the top cover entrance. Lesson learned: use another excl”

“I was looking for the queen to and checking through the hive found a few at the bottom of the frames but this particular one is at the top of the frame. I was going to make some splits and start feeding but now I am not sure. Never actually ran into this. Any help is greatly appreciated submitted by /u/alex_484 [link] [comments]”

“Located in Denver and third year beekeepers. Just did a hive inspection and mite test! Couldn’t find the queen, but I figured it was fine because of the larvae I found on this frame. Then I noticed the bumps on the lower part of the frame. Are they swarm cells? We have an upper deep on, and I would say 80% of the frames are filled. We didn’t want to put on the honey super yet because it’s a first year colony. Maybe we should? It’s also been insanely hot here over the past few weeks and they have”

“1st year beekeepers in NB, Canada with nuc from end of June in a single deep. It had been two weeks since our last full hive inspection due to an overseas trip and we came back to our first deep having all ten frames drawn out with mostly capped honey and nectar, some capped brood and drone cells and these cells (maybe 4 in total across two frames which we believe to be supercedure queen cells? We found what we think was our original queen and all of these cells being in the middle of the frame”

“Should I be worried about my hive swarming? I see what looks to be a queen cell but I’m not 100% sure. I could not find the queen in this hive. submitted by /u/Fabulous-Quarter-322 [link] [comments]”

“Hi everyone, I’m a first year beekeeper in Maryland and seeking some advice. I purchased a nuc in mid May and it’s in all mediums. I expanded into a second medium as the hive progressed and they filled it in without issue. Then about two weeks ago they were at 80% of the second medium box. Since it’s medium boxes I thought that I should add a third box. I was recently told my area could be entering dearth but there is still some flow so now I’m second guessing myself. I did an inspection today r”

“Second year beekeeper in SC. Three weeks ago when I inspected one of my hives, there were a ton of queen cells. I decided to knock down all but two because I’ve been unsuccessful at preventing swarms this season, and they’ve rejected any queen I’ve ever purchased so I decided to let them do their thing. Fast forward three weeks and I opened the hive for the first time. As I start examining frames, I found three queen cells that had been opened (I must have missed the third one originally) and lo”

“I’m a beekeeper in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. During an inspection today, I noticed that one of my hives has a queen cell with larva in it and at least one capped queen cell. See pictures. The queen is still there. There is space for her to lay and space for honey. I also noticed that this hive has an unusually large amount of drone brood and a usually large number of drones. What should I do? Should I put the queen in a separate box to mimic swarming? How much time do I likely have? Also, do yo”

“Another swarm from the woods. They didn't like the hole 😂 and the ventilation hole is totally covered. The place they are right now is really good for nectar and pollen so they are going to stay in the trap till late summer. submitted by /u/zwierze1982 [link] [comments]”